who's in charge around here?

as a child, i was always in a hurry to be an adult. i was the kid who couldn't get grown fast enough. i didn't mind responsibility. i ate responsibility as a healthy after-school snack! i was babysitting my infant sister when i was ten. i was the one who rushed to wash my hands and hurry to the table when my mom yelled that dinner was ready. i always changed the toilet paper roll without being reminded. i was the kid who, when mom said, "can someone help me with this?" i helped, while my siblings acted like they didn't hear her.

when i was nineteen, i got a job as a nanny for three little kids. my boss trusted me to get them up and ready and out the door for school on time every morning. i potty-trained the youngest one. i did the laundry and cooked food. i grocery shopped for the whole family and had access to the family checkbook where i was free to forge her signature any time there was an expense i needed her to pay.

never once did it even cross my mind to doubt myself. i never questioned whether i was responsible enough to handle the job. i just did it. and for the most part, i did it well.

but when i was twenty-three, i was working in a retail clothing store and i got promoted to assistant manager. suddenly, i was in charge in a store where i'd been working as a sales associate. i had my own set of keys and the combination to the safe. i carried large amounts of money to the bank and opened and closed the store daily.

it was while i was working there that i suddenly started feeling like maybe i wasn't up to the task. i would sometimes look around and wonder who was in charge.

one night, my friend/co-worker was standing behind the register with me and when there were no customers in the store, she whipped up her shirt and showed me her fresh, new boobs she'd just had done. my eyes widened and i started looking around, wondering why the manager on duty was allowing such shenanigans in the store during business hours. then i realized that I was the manager. why was i letting her do that? it was hard to be the one to shut down the fun. to enforce the dress code and to never leave early, even if there was a really good movie playing across the road in five minutes. i didn't necessarily want to deal with the angry customers who wanted to speak to the person in charge. i felt like i was playing charades and i was acting out the role of manager, but my turn was almost up and then someone else would take over.

i had a repeat of that same strange feeling when brooke was born. when i was home with her by myself for the whole day and she was so tiny and vulnerable, i'd sometimes look at her and wonder how i could possibly be trusted to keep her safe. i'd wonder who was in charge around here. where's my supervisor? are there hidden cameras watching to make sure i get things right? when is my mom going to show up and establish some rules around this joint?

sometimes i still wonder where the grown-ups are. because maybe i'm not quite ready to grow up yet. i think i want a popsicle. and a nap.

dead birds and hungry snakes

tonight, we were visiting my parents. we were having a good time, about to serve dinner, when my dad noticed a dead bird on the ground below the big window out back.

knowing my child like i do, i immediately called brooke to come outside and check the bird out. she ran out, checked for blood or goo and then picked it up and thoroughly investigated it. she spread out the wings, opened and closed the beak, rubbed its belly.

then she headed further out into the yard to find a place to set it. a place where it wouldn't get stepped on or picked up by the dog. we were heading for a hole where a stump was ripped out recently when i spotted a snake on the edge of the hole.  brooke climbed a tree with branches overlooking the snake so she could get a good look. i ran in for the rest of the family so they could enjoy our slithering discovery.

turns out, it was a copperhead, so it had to be.... um... separated from its head. with a shovel.

when i asked brooke later where she'd decided to leave her dead bird, she told me that when she climbed the tree, she took the bird carcass up with her. she inspected the snake and determined that there were no obvious lumps, so it probably hadn't eaten recently. she then threw the bird at the snake in hopes that she'd get to watch it swallow it whole. too bad snakey lost his head before he got his easy meal.

brookie

sunday, brooke got baptized at church. she's been wanting to do this for a few months and finally got the chance. however, once the moment arrived, she got pretty nervous and almost changed her mind. i guess the hundreds of people and big cameras surrounding her, as well as the strangers smiling at her from around the edges of the dunking pool became a little too much.

but she hung in there, clinging to my side with tears in her eyes until the last possible second and then went in like a champ. she said that she loved Jesus and wanted to be baptized to show that.

i love this picture of brooke hanging on my dad.

on a different and unrelated brooke note, yesterday she was super annoyed by school. it was hard and she had no patience for the shenanigans of her math and spelling assignments. i found this note written on the top of her spelling page. and i had to laugh because "screw" is one of her spelling words and she used it correctly in a sentence.

i'm such a proud mama!

nervous

i've been writing my whole life. i started out writing love notes to my mom and dad. i filled up diaries in elementary school to document my every thought, feeling, or irritation. i wrote letters to all my friends as well as pen pals i picked up around the world. i've had a pen in my hand since i developed enough fine motor skills to make letters look like anything legible.

i've always been a reader too. books, magazines, newspapers, letters, notes, recipes, graffiti. i can't fall asleep at night without reading. i start reading from the moment i wake up in the morning and in one way or another, i keep it up until i fall asleep at night.

i've always suspected that one day i'd write a book of my own, but i was rarely willing to whisper that dream out loud for fear of being mocked. i guess i always thought that people who said they were going to write a book were like those folks who said they were going to make it big in hollywood one day. or be recording artists. or sports.... guys. what do you call people who play sports? i never watch so i don't keep up with those things.

but lately, i can't fight the feeling that there's a book trying to escape from my brain. it's like there's a swirl of words and ideas and possibilities that won't leave me alone and won't let me rest. it has to be written.

i don't know if it'll ever get published or if anyone will ever read it, i just know that i can't wait any longer. i can hardly even go about my daily routine of schooling brooke and cooking and doing the other stuff that fills up my days because i'm so distracted.

i've read other bloggers who wrote posts like this. then they disappeared. it felt like the post of death to a blog. i hope that's not the case here, but i think i understand it now. it's not really a choice so much as a necessity for the writer. oh my gosh, i almost just suggested that i'm a writer. that's a class of people that i don't fit into because i'm not one of those cool kids. but write i must. thank goodness summer vacation is just a few weeks away or i think my brain would explode.

i'm feeling all vulnerable and nervous and excited. like i just opened up my guts and showed them to you. for me, telling embarrassing stories about myself is no big deal, but sharing an honest feeling out loud makes me want to cry.

holy crap. what am i doing?

standing room only clothes

i've had to give entirely too much thought to clothing lately. and i'm finding that i'm not really a fan of clothes. i mean, i don't prefer nudity, but i like to not think about clothes almost at all. if i could wear stretchy pants and a baggy t-shirt and no bra all the time, i'd be quite satisfied with that.

alas, dressing like that looks like crap and makes your body look even blobbier than it already is. as i've been losing weight (36 lbs so far) i've been shrinking out of all my clothes. for a while i could wear belts to compensate, but i'm down two sizes now and i just need new clothes. i've not become any wealthier as i've become skinnier though, so new clothes aren't really in the budget. what's a girl to do? she heads to goodwill. and thankfully there's one fairly close to my house that's filled with the beautiful castoffs of our rich neighbors.

i'm having to remember as i shop that there are different types of clothing. there are standing pants and sitting pants. standing shirts and sitting shirts. there are even standing/sitting bras. the standing pants are the ones that look fine when you're standing up. they feel acceptable, but God forbid you wear them on a day when you're going to spend most of your day seated. those things work like a tourniquet for your waistline and will just about cut you in half, especially if you've eaten recently. they're great though for a day at the mall or a park where you'll be mainly in an upright position and shunning food. these are the pants you want to be photographed wearing.

standing shirts are close fitting and show the outline of your body which emphasizes how you actually do have a waist that dips in between your bust and hips. however, you don't want to be caught sitting down in one of these shirts because, well, because it shows the outline of your body. and when sitting down, everything in your middle condenses, causing things to bulge about in a very unflattering way. it hugs lumps and dispels any possible question as to whether or not you might be pregnant. because pregnant bellies don't have multiple rolls like you do. these shirts are best worn while standing up and with your hands on your hips. sitting shirts are more forgiving and can even be paired with standing pants as long as proper care is taken when seated to make sure that the shirt is flowing outward adequately so as not to get caught in any fat cracks.

bras are another one of those dumb clothing items that have standing/sitting preferences. underwires are better while standing, while something without a wire is better when you'll be seated for most of the hours that you're wearing it. those pesky wires can be quite disagreeable when they're poking you in the ribs or armpit, but they sure do make the girls look young and perky if you're standing up.

i hope there aren't any cameras in the dressing rooms that i frequent because it probably looks like i'm engaged in a game of musical chairs with myself as i try things on. for every item that i slip into, i position myself in front of the mirror and then do a stand up - sit down routine while watching each garment closely to see how it behaves. this is truly a challenge when there's no seat in the changing room. i have to do an imitation sit-down and try to hold myself in that squatty position for long enough to get a good look at how the clothing is hugging my bits. i've got to be careful not to purchase too many of those standing room only garments or i'll never be able to sit down again. or at least not until i lose some more weight and they get re-purposed from standing to sitting clothes.

thumper jr

it's been a good weekend for me. facebook's been treating me right; i found two old friends and an ex-boyfriend (who i wrote about in the beers and tears post last year) and it's bringing back so many happy old memories.

my friend TJ showed up in my life in high school. he arrived in our church youth group with a bang and i've been hooked on him ever since. there are certain people who, when you meet them, you wonder where they've been all your life. he's one of those friends. even when i moved right before my senior year of high school, we kept in touch through letters and phone calls for a few more years. but we both moved too many times. addresses and phone numbers changed too many times. we got lost.

we used to stay up til all hours of the day or night talking on the phone until the phone cord was 15 feet longer than it should have been and when hung up, was lying limp on the ground like a sad, abused noodle. we'd giggle over the stupidest things ever and he'd sing to me. he had the most amusing southern accent which was pretty unusual in new york and he sang country songs.

i'd never had a friendship with a boy before that who i didn't conjure up some romantic feelings for at some point. i was ever in search of my next boyfriend, but tj was never that guy. he was the one who you'd run toward and yank him around a corner to show him where you'd ripped your pants wide open and then you'd laugh until you fell down and one or the other of you peed.

while talking on the phone this morning, i gave tj my blog address in hopes that he might visit me over here in my little corner of the internets. i was nervous and giddy to see what someone from my past might think to read my stories. and not only did he read me, he shared me on his facebook wall for his friends.  he's spent hours reading back through my old posts and i can't stop smiling when i think about it. it's kind of like having someone from your past meet your husband or child for the first time. what if they don't like each other?

tj my dear, i'm so glad i refound you. don't disappear again!

it smells faintly of raspberries

there are times when life feels unfair. there are no good reasons and yet, things happen anyway. we can't control them, they're just a part of life that we have to learn to deal with. like periods. especially for children. and by children, i mean girl-children. and by girl-children, i do not mean brooke. thankfully that's a bridge we haven't had to cross yet.

but many girls start when they're way too young to be having to deal with such things. take myself, for instance. i started at the ripe old age of eleven. i was one of those kids who looked on the event with joyous anticipation. i couldn't get that thing kick started fast enough and once i did start, i told pretty much everyone. it was like it was my birthday and i thought everyone should know and maybe there would be presents and cake.

i thought it made me the most mature and fabulous girl in my group of friends. i offered unsolicited advice to other girls about how it felt and how it should be dealt with and what the drawbacks were. though, in my mind at that time, there were hardly any. long list of pros, not so many cons.

one time, a few months after aunt flo made her maiden voyage into my underwear, i had a friend at my house for a sleepover. she asked about my mysterious period and i proudly boasted that i was having it right then. i was lying. it hadn't been back for a second showing, but i didn't want anyone to know. i felt like my period was a sham, mocking me and my imagined womanliness.

i decided that i would need to prove to her that i really was advanced in the underpants, so i slapped a pad into my undies and would occasionally yank at my rear gear to show her how uncomfortable my new lot in life was. such a martyr. then i decided that it wasn't enough just to wear it, because what would happen if my friend somehow discovered that it was unsullied? i scouted around the house in search of something i could use to mimic blood that wouldn't be dangerous to my girl-parts.

i settled on a bottle of purpley roll-on bath soap that belonged to my little sisters. it came in a bottle like roll-on deodorant, but it was bright colored and fun for kids in the bathtub. i figured it would meet my fake period requirements quite nicely, so i rolled out a storm of soap into my pad and pulled my pants up.

shortly after, i coerced my friend into going to the bathroom with me. i'm sure it didn't take much since we regularly shared bathroom time back then and didn't think a thing about peeing in front of each other. i made sure she caught a glimpse of my "used" pad while i was yanking it out and wrapping it up into a ball with half a roll of toilet paper.

i felt rather pleased with myself for my clever manipulation of her senses. it was like i was a stager, changing reality for another person. only looking back now, i realize that while i thought i was smart, i probably scared her. she probably went home thinking about how she really didn't want to get her own period because that menstrual blood isn't like regular blood. it's purple and foamy, like toxic waste. but on the up-side, it smells faintly of raspberries.